Modern aircraft typically include computer-based guidance and control systems which may ease the workload of the flight crew in operating the aircraft. Aircraft guidance and control systems generally provide flight guidance and navigation information to the flight crew of the aircraft and may generate control commands for automatically driving control surfaces of the aircraft. For example, a typical commercial aircraft includes a Flight Management System (FMS) which is an onboard computer automation system that assists the flight crew in a variety of in-flight tasks such as navigation, performance calculations, reference trajectory computation, and guidance. In this regard, the flight management computer (FMC) of the FMS is configured to execute certain navigation, guidance, flight planning, and performance functions for the aircraft. In addition, modern commercial aircraft with fly-by-wire control systems typically include a flight controls computer for generating control commands which can be used by an autopilot and/or autothrottle systems to automatically control movement of control surfaces or application of thrust so as to fly the aircraft in accordance with data generated by the FMS.
Performance functions of the flight management computer of conventional aircraft typically rely on performance data which is pre-programmed into the FMC prior to the aircraft's entry into service. Such performance data (also known as model/engine database(s)) is generated based on predictive analysis and flight test validation during the design/build and validation stages of the aircraft prior to entry into service. As such, the pre-programmed performance data may become outdated and/or less accurate as the aircraft enters into and continues operation in service. Updates to the analysis-based performance data is typically costly and may not be practical in some cases.
As noted above, guidance and control systems of modern aircraft provide flight guidance and navigation information, which may facilitate flight planning activities. A typical flight plan documents the flight route of the aircraft for a given flight. For example, the flight plan documents the departure and arrival points, estimated time en-route, and identifies a number of waypoints in between the departure and arrival points. The flight plan typically includes information regarding the waypoints such as speed and altitude at each waypoint as well as certain predicted aircraft performance throughout the flight route. The flight route typically consists of several flight segments, including take-off, climb, cruise, descent, and landing segments. Each flight segment may have a flight trajectory or flight path associated therewith. For example, a climb trajectory may be defined for the climb segment, which may be expressed in terms of the rate of climb as a function of time. An aircraft's rate of climb and corresponding climb trajectory may be a type of flight guidance information that may be provided to the flight crew and/or other aircraft systems prior to and/or updated during flight. Similarly, a descent trajectory may be defined, which can be expressed in terms of the rate of descent as a function of time. Again, descent speeds may be flight guidance information that may be provided to the flight crew and/or flight control computer for generating commands to maintain the desired speed during descent to achieve the planned descent trajectory. In some cases, climb and descent segments may consist of multiple sub-segments, one or more of which may be identifiable by different performance of the aircraft during the particular sub-segment.
As air traffic continues to grow, accurate predictions of flight trajectories continue to be an important aspect of flight planning. As such, techniques for improving predictions of flight trajectories may be needed. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure herein is presented.